


Clarabelle's Comforting Conversations

by marginaliana



Category: Critical Role (Web Series), Narrative Telephone - Fandom
Genre: Gen, because Taliesin, why do I do this to myself?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-09
Updated: 2020-07-09
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:20:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25157656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marginaliana/pseuds/marginaliana
Summary: Clarabelle's calling is claiming her.
Relationships: Caduceus Clay & Clay Family
Comments: 7
Kudos: 45





	Clarabelle's Comforting Conversations

Clarabelle came, at times, to visit the kenku.

It was a comfort to hear its playful words, to let it echo back only what she cared to call. Their home was clogged with conversation now, discussions of logistics and routes and the kind of arguments that collected among kin.

The kenku, though, was calming in its presence. She had found it lost and wandering under the crenellation of the canopy, but now it was _she_ who was lost, and the kenku who helped her find herself. When it spoke to her it used her words; Clarabelle had only to consider them carefully in order to hear the truths she needed.

So many things had changed since the time she came upon the corpse. The cattails and carnations in the Grove had grown cancerous. Most of her family was gone – their mother and Corinn first, then their father and Calliope. Colin had changed his name to Colton ('Colin' was, he considered, conspicuously common). 

And now, Clarabelle's calling was claiming her.

She was not like Calliope, filled with wanderlust and daring. Nor was she like Colton, to fling himself into a mission like service was a candy he must shove into his mouth before it was taken away. She was cautious; she could not consider the future casually.

But nor could she deny the vision that had come to her in a communion. She could not deny the glowing candle of her confidence in its meaning. 

There was no confusion about her task, only about its consequences. Colton would be her companion. They would go – but where would they go? They would seek their co-clerics, but what would they find? She had no fear of corpses and cadavers, but to find her family cold was frightening to consider. 

Most concerning was Caduceus, who would be left alone. ( _Are you before me, or behind me?_ whispered her memory of the kenku.) She knew that he could cope, being the strongest of them all. But he looked careworn already and she wanted more for him than coping. She wanted contentment, even if not happiness. She loved him so very much.

_I will leave him cicadas and crickets,_ she thought. Their calls would caress his ears, they would croon to him. They would speak but not speak, like the kenku, and she hoped desperately that they would comfort him as the kenku comforted her now.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Clarabelle's Comforting Conversations by marginaliana(Podfic)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25794001) by [MissIzzy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissIzzy/pseuds/MissIzzy)




End file.
